“Let’s go (Поéхали)!”
April 12, 1961, 62 years ago. This is what Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, said right before launching the spacecraft Vostok 1. At the time, his challenge goal was the space, an impossible realm that no one had ever reached.
It’s too short to represent humanity. But it was enough. Anxiety, anticipation, anxiety. Yuri Gagarin must have captured the overflowing emotions with that one word.
Humanity’s challenge to reach beyond the night sky continues even after Yuri Gagarin. At each critical moment of this challenge, the words spoken by someone remained in the memory, giving courage and hope to those who watched.
Like a modern version of a heroic epic. I gathered these words in celebration of April, the month of science.
● This is one step for a man, but a great leap for mankind. —Neil Armstrong, 1969
If you had to pick one famous astronaut quote, most would pick this one. On July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong said this when he became the first human to step on the moon.
At the time, the United States and the Soviet Union were competing fiercely for space. In 1961, when the former Soviet Union made the first successful manned space flight, the United States was falling behind. In the same year, US President John F. Kennedy proclaims the Apollo program. The plan is to land humans on the moon and return safely. In his speech, Kennedy said, “I am convinced that no space program can impress mankind more strongly than this.”
However, humanity’s desire to covet the universe cannot simply be organized for political reasons. There are two other people besides Neil Armstrong who went to the moon in Apollo 11. One of them, Michael Collins, was to remain on the command module in lunar orbit as a command module pilot. However, Collins’ words pointing out the fundamental reason for space exploration are too wasteful to be buried just because he failed to set footsteps on the moon.
“It is human nature to reach out, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not an option. It must be done.”
● Look at that dot again. That’s right here. That’s home. that’s us -Carl Sagan, 1990
The most distant human-made object. This is the story of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes. They were launched on September 5 and August 20, 1977, respectively. Voyager 1 and 2 are outer space probes that travel forever into space and deliver images of our galaxy beyond the solar system.
On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 took pictures of Earth just before it left the solar system. Astronomer Carl Sagan, who participated in the Voyager project at the time, called the Earth in the picture a ‘pale blue dot’.
“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceit than this image taken from a distance. To me, this picture underscores our duty to be kinder to one another and to cherish and preserve the only home we know, the Pale Blue Dot.”
As of March 13, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are sailing in space, 159 AU (astronomical unit, 1 AU is the average distance between the Earth and the sun) and 132 AU away from Earth, respectively. Just like the name Voyager.
● This ship was not built in a safe harbor. It was built in a stormy sea. —James Wetherbee, 2001
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union ended in the 1990s. Now space has become a place for cooperation, not a place for competition. The United States and Russia, along with the United Kingdom, France, and Japan, have built the International Space Station (ISS) in space about 400 km from the earth’s surface.
On November 2, 2000, the first long-term guest arrived at the ISS. The crew consisted of three crew members: William Shepard from the United States, Yuri Gizenko and Sergei Krikalev from Russia. The mission is to ‘wipe the ground’. The above words were handed to them by James Wetherby, the commander of the return ship Discovery, as a tribute to them who continued their hard labor until March of the following year.
Russia has announced plans to completely withdraw from the ISS project from 2024, as relations with the United States deteriorated after the invasion of Ukraine. What will be the fate of the ISS, which was built by three earthlings 23 years ago in the ‘Sea of Storms’?
Meanwhile, the longest-staying person on the ISS is Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who holds the record for 879 days. It is followed by Peggy Whitson of the United States with 665 days. She is also known as the first female ISS commander. “I like to call myself a strong-willed person,” Whitson said. Some people would say it’s stubborn. It all depends on your point of view.”
● Challenge greatness. – NASA JPL, 2021
Mars is the most Earth-like planet among the planets in the solar system. However, scientists often ridicule themselves that this planet is cursed. This is because the probes that have tried to land on Mars have repeatedly failed. In the midst of this, NASA has been working on Mars exploration rovers such as Spirit (spirit), Opportunity (opportunity), Curiosity (curiosity), and Perseverance (perserverence) since the Viking 1 launched in 1975. succeed
Percivirance, the youngest of NASA’s Mars exploration rovers, drew attention from the landing process. She was launched on July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars on February 18, 2021 due to a parachute deployed. A secret message was hidden in this parachute with red lines irregularly drawn on a white circle.
This secret message, which was revealed in 6 hours by netizens with keen eyesight (?) and cryptographic ability, was converted into binary ASCII code, in which one red cell corresponds to 1 and one white cell corresponds to 0, and writes ‘greatness’. It was the word ‘Dare mighty things’.
These words, spoken by the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, are also the motto of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is in charge of developing and operating unmanned exploration spacecraft at NASA. Could it be because of the motto engraved on the parachute? On April 19, 2021, Percivirance is performing a variety of activities, such as flying the Mars Exploration Helicopter Ingenuity (ingenuity) and generating oxygen on Mars.
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